Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1887-12-15
panlel webster,. confss.Ion.

DANIEL WeDster's Confession.
The following articles of faith were writ
ten by MIR. Webster at the age Of 25, and he
retained those views, in the main, in later
years, as was shown in his remarks before
the Massachusetts, supreme court on the
death OF Jeremiah Mason. The confession
has been printed many times, but is none the
worse for that:
I believe in the existence Of Almighty
God, who created and governs the whole
world. l am taught this by the works
Of nature and the word of revelation.
believe that God exists in three persons:
this learn from revelation alone Nor is it
| any objection to this belief that / cannot
| comprehend how one can be three or three
one. / hold it my duty to believe, not what
can comprehend or account for, but what
my Maker teaches me.
believe the Scriptures of the Old and
New Testaments to be the will and the work
of God. 80.
believe Jesus Christ to be the Son of God.
The miracles which He wrought establish in
my mind his personal authority, and render
( 1t proper for me to believe whatever He as
serts; l believe, therefore all His declara-
tions, as well when He declares Himself the
Son of God as when He declares any other
proposition. And believe there is no other
way OF salvation than through the merits of
| His atonement!
believe that things past, present and to
come are equally present in the mind Of the
| Deity; that with Him there is no succession
OF time nor of ideas; that, therefore, the rela-
| tive terms, past, present and future, as used
among men, cannot, with strict propriety, be
applied to Deity. believe in the doctrines
OF foreknowledge and predestination as ex-
pounded. I do not believe in those doctrines
as imposing any fatality or necessity on
mems actions or any way infringing free
agency.
believe in the utter inability of any
human being to work out his own salv alton
without the constant aids Of the Spirit of all
grace.
/ believe in those great peculiarities of the
Christian religion-a resurrection from the
dead and day of Judgment.
l believe in the universal providence of
God; and leave to Epicurus and his more un-
reasonable followers in modern times, the in
consistency of believing that God made a
world which He does not take the trouble of
governing.
Although have great respect for some
other forms Of worship, I believe the Congre-
gational mode, on the whole, to be prefera-
BILE to any other.
| believe religion to be matter, not Of
demonstration, but of faith. God requires
us to give credit to the truths which He re-
veals, not because we can prove them, but
because He declares them When the mind
Is reasonably convinced thaG the Bible Is the
Word of God, the only remaining duty is to
receive its doctrines with full confidence of
their truth and practice them with a pure
heart.
believe that the Bible is to be understJod
and received in the plain and obvious mean
ing of its passages, since | cannot persuade
myself that book, intended for the in
| Struction and conversion of the whole world,
should cover its true meaning in such
mystery and doubt that none but critics and
philosophers can discover it.
l believe that the experiments and subtle
ties of human wisdom are more likely to OBJ
scure than to enlighten the revealed will of
| God, and that he is the most accomplished
Christian scholar who has been educated at
the feet of Jesus and in the college of fisher
| men.
believe that all true religion consists ir
the heart and the affections and that, there
fore, all creeds and confessions are faliible
and uncertain evidences of evangelical
piety.
Christ is the river Of forgetfulness, in
which by-gone guilt is overwhelmed
| prtson.